Malaysia should be branded an Apartheid state, US lawmakers told

It was first Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman who once stormed out of a Commonwealth meet in London in May 1960 after thundering that he would not be seated at the same table as the President of Apartheid South Africa.

Ironically, fifty-odd years later, Hindraf Makkal Sakthi the NGO is lobbying Washington to classify Malaysia as an Apartheid state no different from that which once existed in South Africa and which ultimately degenerated into an international pariah.

This is the plea that went out to the US Government in recent days through the Human Rights Foundation Malaysia (HuRiFoM), a United Kingdom-based NGO newly set up by Hindraf to outsource its broader Malaysian Agenda.

HuRiFoM, like Hindraf, is headed by Kelantan-born lawyer, P. Waythamoorthy, whose elder brother P. Uthayakumar, is the pro-tem secretary-general of the Human Rights Party Malaysia (HuRiPaMa). Waythamoorthy was granted political asylum in London after the Malaysian Government cancelled his passport while he was abroad – “on the grounds of him having terrorist links with the Tamil Tigers” -- and demanded the document be returned to it by whichever country received him upon landing.

Tracing the source of racism

The thrust of Hindraf’s message in a prepared presentation, “Institutional Racism and Religious Freedom in Malaysia”, for Washington is that “Malaysia is not that bubbling, bustling melting pot of races. In reality, it is a country based on a subtle, pervasive and increasingly aggressive form of racism”.

Three US Government bodies -- the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the US State Department, and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission - accepted the Hindraf presentation delivered by HuRiFoM through Waythamoorthy in late Nov.

The conflict that lies just below the artificial calm is so well concealed, according to the presentation, “that someone with not more than a cursory knowledge of Malaysia will find it hard to believe that there exists anything significant otherwise”.

Delving into the source of racism in Malaysia, the presentation belabours the point that the Federal Constitution of Malaysia defines a Malay as a Muslim who habitually speaks the Malay language and practices Malay culture, customs and traditions.

“In reality, as long as a person is a Muslim, he can be Malay, even an illegal immigrant and a foreigner who is a Muslim can be Malay,” points out the presentation.

Syariah Courts take over

At one stroke of the pen, it appears to HuRiFoM, that the Federal Constitution has dispossessed the descendants of the original Malay settlers in Peninsular Malaysia who came after the Orang Asli.

The Malay definition, according to the HuRiFoM presentation, goes hand in hand with a 1988 amendment to Article 121 of the Federal Constitution to make provisions for the recognition of Islamic Syariah Court and/or Laws, and in consequence by deviations and distortions, to implement Syariah laws on non-Muslims whenever there’s a dispute between Muslims and non-Muslims.

HuRiFoM claims that the Judiciary, where the 60 per cent majority Muslims in the country makes up 90 per cent of those on the Bench, “has abdicated its powers to the inferior Syariah Courts”.

The various state policies, in essence, have been creatively crafted and carved into a jigsaw of a reinforcing racist system, continues the presentation. “The state system operates under the protection of official secrecy and a tight hold on the various apparatus of the state”.

There are those who dare to cross the line and when they do, the presentation noted, “they are detained without trial or suffer malicious prosecution”. Evidently, this renders racism in Malaysia opaque and gives the phenomenon a uniquely Malaysian flavour.

The presentation cites various examples of what happens to those who cross the line in Malaysia on religion. Three will suffice:

Rani, 56, was a 16-day old baby when her poverty-stricken Muslim parents gave her up for adoption to a Hindu couple.

When the authorities caught up with Rani several decades after her marriage, Her Hindu husband was forcibly taken away, circumcised and converted after being threatened with a jail sentence. Meanwhile, Rani’s children and grandchildren are all without birth certificates as they are practising Hindus and not Muslims as the authorities want.

S. Banggarma, a mother of two, was “unknowingly” converted to Islam, in contravention of Article 12 of the Federal Constitution, by state religious authorities at the age of 7 while she was housed at a Welfare Home in Penang.

The Civil Court refuses to hear her case and has referred the matter to the Syariah Court. Her marriage to a Hindu, Sockalingam, has not been registered by the authorities and her husband’s name has been excluded from the birth certificates issued to her children. The Syariah Court has yet to hear Banggarma’s case but the decision is expected to be a foregone conclusion against her.

Raimah Bibi is a practising Hindu adopted by Muslim parents.

Her Hindu husband was told 21 years after their marriage that his wife and his six children by her had to be separated from him and placed in a rehabilitation centre by order of the Syariah Court.

Explaining Article 153 and the NEP to Washington

Away from “the creeping Islamisation of Malaysia”, the bulk of HuRiFoM’s presentation is on Article 153 of the Federal Constitution and the New Economic Policy (1970-1990) which had a shelf-life of 15 years and 20 years respectively.

Both Article 153 and the NEP, according to the presentation, not only continue in a deviated and distorted form but cover every aspect of life in Malaysia. Hence, the parallel drawn by Hindraf and HuRiFoM with Apartheid South Africa.

Article 153, it was pointed out, reserves a reasonable proportion for the Orang Asli, the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak and the Malays in four areas only: intake into the civil service, intake into institutions of higher learning owned by the Government and training privileges; government scholarships; opportunities from the Government to do business.

The NEP, an offshoot of the “business opportunities” proviso, was meant among others to ensure that the target groups own, control and manage 30 per cent of the nation’s corporate wealth by 1990.

The reality, complains the presentation, has meant the denial of the legitimate aspirations of the non-Malay communities as pledged under the second prong of Article 153.

Elsewhere, the presentation raises the plight of the Christians in Malaysia, the domination of the civil service and Judiciary by Muslims, rigged elections, illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls, and the continuing disenfranchisement and marginalization of the people of Sabah and Sarawak and Indians.

Malaysia Chronicle